Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Canadiens Paying The Price?

1) As we wrote at the time of the trade deadline, we felt that a time would arrive during the playoffs that the Canadiens would regret trading away Chistabal Huet. Back in late February we wrote our Trade-day-post-mortem. In it we chastised Bob Gainey for making such a rash decision; Placing his Cup contending team in the hands of a 20 year old rookie with only a handful of NHL experience

2) At the time, like now, we had no issue in giving Price the starters job. Not that Huet played poorly, but Price did play well in the AHL and in the stints given with the big club. Our beef with BG's tactics was to give up his insurance policy (Huet) for very little (A late 2nd round draft pick). As we wrote then: unless Price leads the Habs to at least the conference Finals (2 playoff series wins) this deal will prove to be a loser in Montreal. After last night's shaky performance we bet Guy Carbineau would prefer to have a reliable back up if he decided a change in goal was warranted. As it is his other option, Jaroslav Halak is even more green than Price.

3) Should Carey continue to struggle and the Habs fail to advance beyond this round, you can be absolutely sure that critics both in Montreal and throughout the NHL will point to Gainey's trade deadline move as a reason for the Hab's early demise. Don't get us wrong, we're NOT saying this series is over by any means. The Flyers have no business winning, but give them credit, they are doing what it takes to win the close games and thus far their goalie Marty Biron has outplayed his Montreal counterpart. However the Flyer defense and Biron are exploitable, but they will have to step up their efforts. In the meantime the pressure is mounting on the shoulders of 20 year old Price to carry the team. Time will tell if he's up to the challenge, especially now facing the adversity of a team behind in a playoff series. Is he the heir apparent to Roy/Dryden or the next Steve Penney?

1 comment:

How many times do I have to say it. Without goaltending it doesn't matter how good a team you have! Why did they rush this kid? How many 20 yr olds can even play NHL hockey let alone carry a team with the pressure of montreal?